hmmm...

Grate grate grate.

It's getting more grating.

The more interaction we have, the more I feel the "grate".

The more my nerves get irritated and the more I feel I need to control myself.

Not good. When this is your teammate you're talking about.

Not good at all. Been feeling this for a few months already.

Eversince May or June...Hmm.

good morning to the world!

Ok, this is the 4th ICANN meeting I’ve attended and by far the most busy and tiring. I’m surprised I’m getting by on an average of 5-6 hours’ of sleep everyday. I feel a little zonked out here and there but am still holding out well enough.

With an involvement in 2 mini events and another 5-6 separate appointments with various companies, I’m thinking that this is the most fruitful of all the ICANNs I’ve attended so far too. :)

I love the food here. Loads of beef. Yum yum. Loads of kimchi. Yum yum. Loads of garlic and onions. Yum yum. Loads of spicy tofu soup. Yum yum. Heheheh…

I’m still amazed by the number of cosmetics shops there are here. On one single street alone, there can be multiples of Face Shop, Skin Food, Missha, Innisfree, Body Shop, Etude House. There can be 2 or 3 branches of the same brand name on a single avenue and each branch will still have many ladies jostling for space inside haha.

I love these shops!! Went on a rampage and am now equipped with close to 40 pieces of masks and various bottles of BB cream, moisturizer and other products.

Resting in room for a little while before heading out for another appointment

Sitting here in different meetings and sessions over the last few days has reconfirmed some of the things which I’d come to learn.

1. Caucasians really have a knack of talking a lot. One simple point to bring across is expressed in 9 or 10 long sentences.

2. But well, those who can talk well and those can talk for long and those who can talk loud, are usually the ones who get further and higher.

3. Some Caucasians really have a cocky attitude and most of them come from the States. I had a meeting with a company in the morning. Started and based in the US but with companies in Germany, Japan and some other European countries. 3 of them versus one of me. CEO was a young guy, probably in his 30s. Relatively good-looking with a typical cocky attitude. Lots of snide smiles between him and the other guy, who was Spanish I think. Only the lady was nice enough and was sincere in her smiles……

4. With point 3 said though, there are also those Caucasians who are sincere, genuine and take the effort to accommodate their ways to those of Asians or who bother to keep relationships going with you. I definitely appreciate the sincerity of these folks. :)

5. “Guan xi” is really deeply rooted in the blood of Asians. Building relationships, eating and drinking and having fun together are so very common.

I am also getting a little irritated by the aggressiveness of a certain someone. And his enthusiasm. I don’t know how to put it in words. Maybe he’s gotten passionate about his work over the last year or so. But the way he speaks now about work is grating on me a little.

Day 1 - Kimchi overdose

Landed in Seoul around 6:55am this morning. Meaning it was about SG 5:55am.

Just some quick observations about Korea....

• There are many couples who like to wear couple-outfits i.e. top matches, bottom matches, and sometimes even footwear matches as well
• Kimchi is so prevalent in each and every meal that I thank God I can take spicy stuff. In a strange way, kimchi has somehow not made my stomach feel worse. Yay!
• Their Insadong area is very much like Taipei's Shilin Night Market, just 3 times bigger and 5 times less dirty. I love this area and couldn't stop myself from grabbing knick-knacks...:)
• I like the way the country is so "digitised" and so forward in its approach towards IT. Loads of digital billboards everywhere. Alot of things seem to be quite IT-oriented...They've got the world's highest broadband penetration rate.
• Most people here can't speak English for nuts and those who can speak a smattering of the language can only count in it and speak words like "5 thousand dollars".
• They dress in a less quirky manner than the Japs.
• Most Korean girls look the same.
• Korean guys ain't that good-looking, well, at least the average guy on the street.
• I absolutely dig the grilled meats here and the BBQ meats.

Till here, I need to buy facial products for myself and my brother tomorrow....Face Shop, Skin Food, Etude House and Missha shops aplenty...:)

Plus the supermarket downstairs seems very interesting. Will make an efort to pop by there too...

metamorphosis

Little kiwi is now a pseudo porcupine.

yip yip yip yip

Been a little high strung ever since I came back from Europe. I think it’s because of…

• My project which is due to be launched very soon but there are still things which are pending. Argh.
• Big auntie is approaching.
• Tension from over-zealous folks at home.
• Rush for things to be prepared adn arranged for the upcoming meeting in Seoul.
• Trying to keep fit but can’t seem to be achieving much in running. haha.
• Anticipated mad rush for the project and personal stuff when I come back from Seoul.

I feel like an ant running around lol...!!!

Philippe Jarrousky

My new fav. :)

Philippe Jarrousky, a French counter-tenor.
Singing Vivaldi's aria "Vedro con miodiletto".
Accompanied by the Matheus Ensemble
And directed by Jean-Christophe Spinosi.

He has collaborated with Jean-Christophe & the Matheus ensemble for the last 5-6 years.

Enjoy! For those who are open to listening to opera that is haha...;p

toofy

Oh yes. I'd like to share this lovely blog and spread the happiness around.
This blog has brought me smiles aplenty and I hope it does the same for others out there as well. :)

www.mymilktoof.blogspot.com

It's amazing.
It's lovely.
It's so darn cute and...
It's god-damn creative!

Still not too good

:( Hope I’ll be ok by the time I fly off on Friday night.

Self-medicated and popped flu medicine last night. Thought I’d be concussed and have a good night of sleep but it turned out otherwise. I woke up a grand total of 4 times during the night, became a certified zombie this morning and ended up going to office 40minutes later than usual.

*whines*

Was instructed by the significant other to take more vege. And so the obedient me had fish porridge for lunch today, together with a packet of plain stir-fried green vegetables gotten from the “cai-fan” stall. Cost me $1.50 just to get that bunch of vege…

Having my nose slightly blocked apparently renders my brain being slower and more careless than usual. Sent an email to the boss yesterday evening with loads of errors in dates and months and other details. Gosh. I’d slap myself if I were him.

I shall endeavour to be more alert today despite the stuffy muffy feeling.
GANBATTE!

Shells attract oldies

I attract uncles and aunties.

A Taiwanese uncle openly hit on me during my Sydney trip in June. It was rather embarrassing because we were at a dinner table. A Taiwanese uncle is now stalking my FB site.

And when I came back to office from my Europe trip, at least 4 aunties came by my cubicle one by one asking me how come I was not in office for so long, where I went, how was it, etc.

When I was in Fontainebleau (outskirts of Paris), an auntie kept smiling at me on the public bus and eventually started a conversation with me.

Shucks.

It's the shell's turn to feel under the weather

K was not feeling well over the weekend but he's gotten better yesterday already.

Now it's my turn. Had a strange bout of flatulence and slight diarrhoea yesterday evening.
And woke with a sore throat and a runny right nostril this morning.

Hence, macaroni for me for lunch today. Really light but still very tasty.
I love Boon Tong Kee's macaroni~!

Get It On!

I wasn't feeling very good this morning.
Both pysically and emotionally but seeing this video totally made me laugh out loud!
It's amazing what these creative folks can come up with!

HAHAHHAHHAHA....enjoy the vid!
p/s: Turn on the volume. :)

All men are jerks. (Oh well, almost)

This has been a recent topic amongst myself and some girlfriends. Perhaps I shouldn’t say recent because the phrase has been uttered by us since a year or more ago. It died down after awhile and in the recent past week or so, it’s been revived again because of a situation a friend unwittingly got herself into.

It’s a universal fact most men think with their head. The one down there I mean. That is, if they even think at all. A guy friend once told me, it’s a constant challenge for the bigger head to try to reign over the smaller head. With discipline and will and sheer effort.

I don’t know. Is that true? The older I get, the more instances I see, hear, witness of men acting like dumbasses. Is it in their make?

But oh well, with all that said, to cut the men a little slack and to avoid sounding like an old spinster, I won’t deny that there are women out there who are bitches as well.

Lily Allen - Fuck You

I really do like this song as it's rather catchy. My head can't help but bob to the tune of it. :) Her songs are nice! Nicer than Lady Gaga's :)

Titles are a chore.

The kiwi is no longer fuzzy.

Tolerance?

I find my heart and mind not as open as it should be to embrace some "shortcomings" of others. Disclaimer: I am no saint, I am no perfect person. So I know I have my own areas of lacking.

Just wondering how tolerant I should be as a person. Hmm...

"Shortcomings" are in inverted commas because they might be shortcomings to some, might not be to others.....or maybe I am just being picky.

Quotes

There was an email thread this morning about a staff apologising to me and another manager for a mistake made.

I've gleaned this from some of the ensuing emails which were sent. Which I find rather true.

"Don’t worry about failure, worry about the chances you’ll miss when you don’t even try"

"When you make an effort to understand, you will learn better."

Question Time

What is the best way to market oneself in an organization?

I am not the kind to engage in a “see and be seen” modus operandi. Nor am I one to spend time licking the bosses’ shoes. But somehow, these two methods seem to be the fastest way to move ahead. At least from what I’ve observed.

I’ve been in both the private and public sectors and that seems the quickest way to move up the ranks or get into the good books of the bosses. The quiet hardworking worker may or may not get his/her just recognition unless the boss is a perceptive and partial person.

I used to think that being hardworking and delivering well is good enough. Till an ex-boss, Guin, said to me “You need to put yourself out more and let the ones in management see you more.”

A little digression. Work, can get a little complex. Aside from the work itself, there’s politics and people dynamics to contend with. How energy consuming sometimes. Which is why I usually choose to hide in my own corner and just work.

Which brings me back to the first question again. What is the best way to market oneself in an organization if one prefers to be the quiet worker and not the worker with the gregarious (whether real or reel) outlook? Hmm.

Happy Hatchday! (well, soon.)

Interestingly, I was telling K that day...that this is the last year that I will be in my 20s.
Yeps, I'll be hitting my 29th birthday soon.

Looking at the numeral brings me some thoughts. I wonder what the future will bring for me. I wonder if I will go maniacal when I hit 30 next year. And I wonder if I need to start being more health conscious.

Mainly, I reminisce. I do have some small regrets here and there. Like how I could have done better at certain things, how I could have achieved much more than now, how I set airy goals for myself only to fall because I did not make good on my own words or I did not know how to go about making things happen, how i could have blah blah blah...you get the drift.

I think about how when I was younger I'd look at the corporate executives walking around office buildings and I'd tell myself that "Wow. I want to be like them. Working, earning and generally enjoying life." How naive and innocent haha.

I'm the one walking around office buildings now and wondering how I wish I could be young again and carefree and just enjoying life haha. The ironies of life. :)

I've never celebrated my birthday with a mad party or a drunken escapade or a dance-through-the-night marathon. And I've never really understood why some choose that way of celebration. Ah well, to each his own, I shall respect their preferences haha.

Simplicity for me is best I guess. Everyday life is sometimes hectic enough as it is I don't want to complicate things with sore feet, a hangover and alcohol-induced memory loss. Simple meals in the company of loved ones and friends and of course K.

Looking forward to Friday night with K, Sat with K and the Frenchies, Sunday with sec sch peeps and next Monday with my cousin. Meals, meals, meals. I hear calories ringing their way into my blood stream but what the heck. haha.

I'm 29 in a few days. I'm looking forward to things to come.
I've yet to reach my peak and voila, there's electricity in the air. :)

CPDRC

And now, I'm gonna spam my own blog with a few videos. (There's too many to be put up at a shot haha.) Because I think it's quite a meaningful thing which has been done here. Alternative rehabilitation methods. Inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center Dance group perform monthly for visitors and their friends and relatives.

Loads of practice and coordination needed. I think they've put in alot of effort and big big kudos to them! And I hope you'll enjoy the vids as much as I did. :)

Michael Jackson medley


Nobody


Jai Ho


Thriller

What sound does a hippo make?

I was flipping Recruit earlier on and was amused to see one of my ex-companies hiring.
There was a whole long list of job openings so much so I began to wonder if there was a mass exodus of staff from the company again...lol.

Some of the positions include:
Tour Operations Managers & Execs
Marcomm & Brand Manager
Business Development Managers & Execs
Web Marketeer
Graphic Designer

Think some of you should know by now which company this is haha.

No Matter What

I was a fan of Boyzone back in 1997-1998. I remember cutting out little photos of them from newspapers and magazines, and pasting them everywhere.

I had posters of them on my walls and when my cupboard, shifted them to the insides of the my cupboards so that when I opened my cupboard in the morning, I'd see them.

I gushed over Stephen Gately and Ronan Keating mainly. Shane Lynch had some attention from me but it was mainly Stephen & Ronan.

I cast them aside when I entered uni and didn't really bother much about them thereafter.

Still, it's a little sad to hear of Stephen Gately's death.

A sudden death apparently. In Majorca on 10th October. No further details as yet.
And I was just in Barcelona about slightly over a week ago. We were in the same country....gosh.

RIP Stephen.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH

I have a 58 year-old male boss who is in a perpetual state of menopause.

Period.
(opps, no pun intended.)

Hmmm...

Some people can get rather insistent on their own views and thoughts. And when they get that way, sometimes they raise their voices (whether consciously or subconsciously), sometimes they just adopt a more agressive physical stance.

Anyway, I think there’s a variety of reasons why some people can get rather insistent but there are some major ones which stand out.

• Plain old stubbornness
• Not wanting to “lose” in a discussion or a small argument
• Confidence (or overconfidence?) in one’s ability and thought
• Plain old muddleheaded-ness (is there such a word?)

Just my two cents' worth.
Food for thought. Do you get this way?

Sigh

A little upset.
I thought I could have a nice, hot simple meal in office whilst clearing my work. For me, a good meal is a source of motivation in a way...

My fav century egg with minced meat porridge turned out horrible and tasteless because a different guy was cooking it today.

And the Chinese pear which I bought was overripe. More mushy than crunchy. Either they kept it overnight or it was overripe.

Whatever it is. I feel a little shortchanged now. :(

Thank god K is bringing me for supper at Blk 85 tonight.

HAHAHAHHAHA

This is absolutely hilarious!!!!

How would you react if you were the interviewer?

I was thinking of something whilst on the way home yestreday. I wonder how a job interviewer would react if I gave him or her such an answer in the following scenario.

Interviewer: So tell me, what do you think are your weaknesses?
Me: Oh, eggs, mushrooms and chicken wings.

(Disclaimer: Of course I'd follow up with the proper answer later on lah... haha.)

I realise that...

• My pockets are getting dry and will get drier in the next few months. There's 3 one-month-old baby celebrations this week alone and there'll be 2 upcoming weddings,and Xmas is coming...
• I might be too accomodative sometimes.
• One should still try to smile despite having shit poured all over you. Easier said than done though.
• My back view probably looks like thousands of other Chinese girls in Singapore.
• It's been 3 weeks (or more) since I went jogging. Uh-oh..how to prepare for 10km SCM?
• Even when you do good and get nothing in return, you should still try doing good. And that's a paradoxical truth of life.
• I am blessed to have a wonderful bunch of friends, family and my Knight.
• I miss K alot now.
• Alot of people live in the past. I am one of them. Need to learn how to be more forward looking.
• I should probably be slogging my butt off now but I am not. Uh-oh...
• A pimple has sprouted on my nose.
• SQ is still the best airline I've taken. Not that I've taken many others though hahaa..
• I' d better get back to work NOW....hmmm then again...there should be time for just one more short post right? hmm mm....

Me Back

16 days, 4 cities, 750 photos, numerous sandwiches and dozens of cathedrals later, I am back in Singapore.

I am back at work. After clearing 1200 emails and 6 files on my table, I MIGHT be back here.

In the meantime, I’ll slog away…body in SG, mind in Europe.

Bye Barcelona, Bonjour Paris Again

By the time we left Barcelona, we were already tired from the trip. For me, it was sore feet, tired eyes from the glare of the sun at times and a lower back which ached at times. Haha, I seem old suddenly.

We went to a hill called Tibidabo on our last day there. It was a long way there, about an hour-plus by public transport (metro, bus, then tram). But it was surprisingly beautiful place which overlooked the city. A cathedral sat atop the hill and atop the cathedral, there was a statue of Jesus, almost like the “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio de Janeiro.

There was an amusement park there too, complete with carousels and Viking rides. It felt as if we were transported back in time to the 1950s where such fairs were commonplace in UK. What was missing was clowns walking around and cotton candy machines haha.

I've tried the Fideguay and the Seafood Paella in Spain. And all I have for them is applause haha. :) Hehe, those with a preference for more salty stuff will like them too.

We left Barcelona early yesterday morning. And reached Paris about 9 hours later in the evening. Trundled through loads of towns and finally reached sometime around 530pm.

It was extremely cold today. So cold till my fingers were frozen. Toes were half frozen in my shoes too haha. And my lower back acted up again in the cold weather. K had to bear with a grumpy me lol.

Nothing particularly exciting today though haha. Tomorrow will be more exciting. With a boat ride along the La Seine planned and a special dinner reservation at this mini island within the city. The island's called Chalet des Iles.

Till here.